For some time now various types of protection have been designed and realized for the human body against the harmful and above all lethal effects deriving from cutting and sharp bodies in general.
When, in the present invention, the term ‘protection’ is used, it refers to ballistic protection determined on the basis of tests conducted taking into account the United States' NIJ specifications (which take into consideration the definition of the ammunition, weight of the bullet, the minimum speed required to effect the test). On the basis of these specifications, for example, protection class I is the lowest, with the speed of the bullet as it leaves the weapon registering 259-320 m/sec., class III envisages a bullet speed of 426 m/sec, up to class IV, in which the speed of the bullet is approximately 870 m/sec.
The currently known embodiments are all based on the general concept of a garment wearable like a vest bearing, both at the front and the rear, a plate realized generally with ceramic material suitable to constitute the barrier element against the penetration of bullets and blades.
The plates utilized until now have dimensions of approximately 18 cm×18 cm, and these measurements are due, basically, to two reasons: first of all, it is necessary to limit the weight of the vest and secondly, but not less importantly, the need to not hinder the movements of the person protected, particularly the movements for bending over forwards and crouching down.
From this limited surface of the plates realized until now there has arisen a first drawback, constituted of the narrowness of the protected zone, both at the front and rear.
It should also be noted that the protection devices currently realized, if divested of the plate, do not offer any type of effective protection, performing, in the end, like normal items of clothing, either because they are realized with fabrics which, intrinsically, do not possess any protective power or because, even if realized with Kevlar®, which has intrinsic bulletproof properties, they leave vast areas of the body uncovered, such as the lateral portions of the bust. This constitutes a further drawback presented by the bulletproof and knife-proof vests realized until now.
Said plates currently utilized are realized generally with ceramic materials and this leads to the drawback of their heavy weight and, also for this reason, as mentioned earlier, they present rather limited dimensions.
A further drawback of the currently known embodiments of bulletproof and knife-proof vests consists in the fact said vests are realized making wide use of seams; since the seams pass through the entire thickness of the vest following a single plane essentially orthogonal to the external surface of said vest, these present the drawback of constituting a penetration way for bullets and knives. And the stitching system with which the majority of known vests are realized, in order to augment their rigidity, present the aforesaid drawback of the presence of the seams, in fact it could rightfully be claimed that the stitching, because of the high number of seams necessary for its realization, amplifies considerably the risk of penetration of the shots/stabs.
It should also be noted that the embodiments of personal protection realized until now generally envisage vests only and, the only additional protective elements envisaged are an element for protecting the neck and the nape and pelvic protection, square in form, which, in general, presents the drawback that said protection limits the wearer's movements.